Do you feel like you’re drowning … but you haven’t even left your couch? Welcome to the Great Content Overload Era. To help you navigate the choppy digital waves, here are The Globe’s best bets for weekend streaming.
Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara, Disney+
Calgary pop duo Tegan and Sara are the subject of Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan and Sara.HO/The Canadian Press
I’m sorry to report that everything has not been as awesome with Tegan and Sara as we had been led to believe. Since around the time the Canadian identical-twin indie-pop duo released their acclaimed 2007 album The Con, a number of their fans have fallen victim to an online con. Known as “Fake Tegan” or “Fegan” in the band’s circle, some nefarious individual has been impersonating the older (by eight minutes) of the two musical sisters on Facebook and other social-media platforms, a practice known as catfishing. After gaining access to Tegan’s demos, scanned ID and intimate details of her family’s health issues, Fegan used them to gain the trust and confidence of superfans who often felt deeply connected to Tegan and Sara because of the pair’s long-time openness about being queer. Erin Lee Carr’s documentary attempts to get to the bottom of the ruse – and makes clear just how unsettling and disturbing it has been for both the band and fans. Fanatical satisfies the true-crime itch while also functioning as a sociological exploration of the positive and negative ways social media has changed fandom. The twins are full participants, though, Tegan remarks, “As soon as we got the green light to do this project, I immediately regretted it.”
The Promised Land, Crave
The Promised Land, on Crave, is adapted from Ida Jessen’s novel The Captain and Ann Barbara.Henrik Ohsten/Crave
Adapted from Ida Jessen’s novel The Captain and Ann Barbara, this brutal Danish movie directed by Nikolaj Arcel follows an army veteran named Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen, in a powerful performance) who turns to farming potatoes on a desolate piece of land in 18th-century Denmark. Beyond the usual challenges of growing tubers in 1700s Scandinavia, Kahlen must deal with a sinister local judge and landowner who wants to put him out of business and the complications of a romance with a widowed servant. The Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz made The Promised Land a Critic’s Pick earlier this year during its cinematic release, declaring the film no small potatoes. “It is as emotionally and narratively punishing as it is beautiful, the sweeping vistas of rural Denmark offering an open-skied escape from the struggles on the ground below,” he wrote.
The Office, Prime Video
Australia now has its own The Office.John Platt/Amazon Prime
Does the world really need a remake of the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant 2001 classic British comedy about those who toil in the Slough branch of the fictional Wernham Hogg paper company? I remember asking myself that when the American version starring Steve Carrell premiered in 2005 – and, of course, it ran for nine seasons on NBC and will continue to stream for eternity. (On both Crave and Netflix in Canada, if you want a rewatch.) In total, there have been 14 versions produced around the globe (including La Job in Quebec). Now, Australia has its own The Office – an Amazon Original starring sketch comedian Felicity Ward as cringeworthy branch manager Hannah Howard. This is, if you were wondering, the first time a woman has been cast in the David Brent/Michael Scott role. What genuinely makes this upside-down world adaptation of the mockumentary-style sitcom distinct, however, is that it is premiering in a postlockdown world where in-person office culture is endangered and co-workers Zoom with each other while in the same building. The premise of the pilot is not that Hannah’s boss wants to downsize the Sydney branch of packaging company Flinley Craddick, but that she wants to make remote work permanent – a disturbing prospect for the lonely and the lovelorn.
Austin, CBC Gem
Ben Miller and Sally Phillips in Austin.CBC Gem
It’s a bonzer of a week to check in with the Australian comic sensibility as this original sitcom set in Canberra lands on CBC Gem, too (where it joins the off-kilter Sydney rom-com Colin from Accounts, which you should watch first if you haven’t). While on book tour down under, British children’s author Julian (Ben Miller) is hit by a double whammy of his own making. First, he finds himself on the verge of cancellation after retweeting a white supremacist (who was making a good point about free speech, he protests); then, he discovers that he is the father of Austin (Michael Theo), the result of a long ago liaison with an Australian woman. Both revelations threaten to topple Julian’s marriage to/working relationship with illustrator Ingrid (Sally Phillips) – but could a heartwarming story about connecting with a grown-up son, who happens to be on the autism spectrum, be the solution to his Nazi PR problem? The main reason to watch Austin is the neurodiverse Theo’s charming performance as the title character. Though making his acting debut, he was a star on the reality series Love on the Spectrum Australia (which predates the American version.) There’s some good gags that mine cultural and class divides between posh Brits and blue-collar Aussies, too.
Children Ruin Everything, CTV/Crave
Children Ruin Everything returns for a fourth season on CTV.Jackie Brown/CTV
Kurt Smeaton’s popular Canadian half-hour sitcom about parenting returns for a fourth season on CTV this week. After years of shrugging at completely unappealing posters for this show posted in transit shelters, I finally tuned in to discover that the misadventures of couple Astrid (Meaghan Rath) and James (Aaron Abrams) and their three kids are extremely relatable to this downtown dad who drinks the same Toronto-brewed beer they do. The new episodes see James struggling to balance searching for a new job while also being a stay-at-home dad after having been made redundant by AI at the e-commerce business he worked at last season. While I’m finding the writers’ attempts to keep James’s old colleagues as secondary characters a bit strained, the strong core of the show is still there: genuine chemistry between Rath and Abrams and genuinely funny observations about the maddening minutia of parenting, from potty training to Tupperware drawers. Guest stars coming down the pipeline include Scott Thompson, Carolyn Taylor, Colin Mochrie and, originator of the body-horror genre, David Cronenberg.